He's facing stiff competition in the Silkmen’s goal-of-the-season stakes, but Waide Fairhurst is enjoying perhaps his best spell for Macclesfield Town.

And he’s got nothing but praise for the man who’s instilled the belief and confidence that’s allowed him to show his best form.

The striker staked his claim for the top goal with a thumping long-ranger to help beat Chester earlier this month.

It was one of many flashes of inspiration that, frustratingly, he’s not always been able to show on a regular basis during his time as a Silkman.

And after netting his eighth so far this season against Alfreton, Fairhurst is adamant that he owes a vote of thanks to his manager, John Askey.

The striker sealed victory over Alfreton with Macc's second goal (Image: Dominic Salter)

Askey has backed his man to the hilt, something Fairhurst says he hasn’t always received during his career, and the benefits are there for all to see – as well as his eight strikes, Fairhurst has more assists, with at least nine helping hands given to his team mates.

“I’ve got eight goals and I don’t know how many assists and I’m confident – that confidence makes a massive difference,” he said after his goal sealed victory over Alfreton.

“I’m getting chances. Today I didn’t have a shot until that one right at the end, I’ve tried setting people up, I’ve done other things but that goal was my first shot today.”

One shot, one goal – not a ratio to be sniffed at. But what did the man with an eye for goal make of Scott Barrow’s latest entry, a storming charge through the Reds that ended with a cool, calm, collected finish.

“Scotty keeps telling me he’s getting goal of the season, but I don’t know about that – it was a good goal to be fair to him but more importantly overall we’ve kept a clean sheet and we’ve scored goals – that’s how you win games, basically.

“I’m just happy to be playing football, I’ve always believed in myself but I’ve let myself down at times fitness-wise, alright I’ve had some bad injuries but I haven’t helped myself in some ways.

“But the gaffer believes in me, he’s always telling me ‘you’ll get fit, you know you can score goals, you know you can do well and get out of this league – and get us out of this league’ which is so good to have, when you have your manager believing in you it gives me a lot of confidence to go and play week in, week out.

“Yeah, I’ve had my bad games this season, don’t get me wrong, but he’s still believed in me, still kept putting me in there.

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“And it’s not like I’m playing in the team because there’s nobody else, there are other people who can play in the team, definitely, and some managers would rather have put them in when I wasn’t quite fit, that’s how it used to be.

“If the kit man was fit I wouldn’t have played!

“But now it gives me that extra buzz, knowing that he believes in me, it makes you want to go out and do it for him, as well as for myself and for the team.

“The gaffer – even in training – gets on at you, I gave the ball away once and he was right on me, shouting and screaming, and it’s not that he’s a shouty manager because he’s not, he just gives you a little kick up the bum and tells you you’re better than that – he’s a good man to work under.

“The team spirit is there, we work our socks off – if we don’t it’s not only the gaffer that gets at us, or Efe or Byron or any of the coaching staff, other players get at you.

"We’ve got a good standard of football all the way through where we all know what we're doing, we’re on each others’ levels and we’ve got experienced players like Whits and Pilks and it makes a massive difference to us.

"Things are good but we’ll take it game by game – there’s no point us saying ‘right, we're going to win the league’ or ‘we’re going to get in the play-offs’ because the next game comes and we go again, we’re in a great position and we’ll take confidence from our home form into the game against Barnet on Saturday.

"We’ll stick together and keep doing what we’re doing.

“If you work hard your ability will come out and show and that’s what’s been happening each week now.”